So when did the knives come out at Seagate? To lose two CxO-level officers in one day is exceptional, even by Seagate standards. Last week's axing of CEO Bill Watkins and the resignation of COO David Wickersham resembled a day of the long knives in Scotts Valley. So how did it come to this? The events timeline looks like this: 1. At a Barclays Capital analysts' …
So Western Digital has the "sexy" Velociraptor.
This is a 10,000rpm HDD that gives faster HDD access and consequently faster boot times and faster game loads.
It also costs 10x per GB what a standard 7500rpm HDD costs.
150GB 10,000 rpm Raptor costs £150.
500GB 7500rpm HDD costs about £50
The Velociraptor also uses more power and is more noisy.
Now I'm an avid gamer and I like hitting a level in multiplayer first cos my HDD delivers, but the cost of that drive sure hit my pocket. And the fact that no-one else I know has one means it's not exactly selling like hot cakes. Also I don't think the tech developed making it is exactly going to have trickle down effects or possible downgraded performance sell off capability.
I don't think Seagate needed a velociraptor equivilant.
Surely a more cogent "sexy" feature for Seagate to do would be to do the Green thing. Go all Eco.
Except Western Digital has already beaten em to it with Green labeled drives that "use less energy".
Hmmm, perhaps they can make silence sexy instead....
Paris cos she's sexy till she says something...
It's the old story - when times get hard shutdown R&D, lay a load of people off - all contributing to the recession of course. It's a big buggering blackhole and we're all getting sucked into it.
When the market sees reports like this about a huge company and sees they're cutting everything possible, it will just kill confidence in their shares even further. The sensible money will go to WD.
That bit about the possibilty of shutting down SSD research is absolutely incomprehensible.
The Japs know that the companies that survive are the ones that look to the future - EVEN when it gets tough.
Umm say what?
"7500rpm"
ifs Ive said it once before Ive said it 20 times, get your damn figures straight before spouting off at the mouth please.
On a side note WD is awesome and Im replacing my old 150Gb Raptors with the new 300Gb Velociraptors. Drive is just utterly awesome in everyway. Have a good weekend Reg readers see you next week.
The unfortunate problem with the Seagate Board is that they refuse to acknowledge that a global recession has occurred and that is when innovation investments should go up, not down. With this strategy, corporate can be prepared to kick butt when the economy recovers. At the same time, Seagate should maintain the current business line and market to the reduced quantity of buyers to continue revenue generation, even at a reduction. Performing a total reorganization and reallocation of manufacturing struction will introduce a major loss in quality, which in turn will cause Segate to lose credibility in the marketplace.
IMHO, this is the beginning of the end for Seagate, just like how Micropolis disappeared in the 1990s.
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